Interview with Caz and Craig from Ytravel

Today's interview is from the constant travellers Caz and Craig Makepeace. Their Ytravel Blog is one of the most well written, inspiring travel blogs on the planet, and has a very vocal following. For more on them you can also find them on their interactive Facebook fanpage and on Twitter. 

Q1: Let's get to know you a little bit. Who are you guys? Where are you from? What's your favourite animal? And when you eat your Smarties, do you eat the red ones last?

We are Caz and Craig Makepeace, a married couple with a three year old daughter, Kalyra, and another girl due in August. We love travel, adventure, sports, outdoor living, getting out and meeting cool people, hopefully over a beer or two, and dancing like no one is watching (really when no one is watching).

Caz’s favourite animal is an elephant and Craig’s is a lion.

We eat M&M’s and I’m too interested in stuffing them in my mouth before Kalyra steals them from me to worry about eating any colour last.

Q2: This question is for Craig: which country you've visited has the best beers? Which has the worst?

Ireland for Kilkenny and Guinness and the USA for their micro-breweries are definitely the best. (ED: Exactly what I was thinking, I love Kilkenny, and people just don't realise that the US has great beer because all they've ever heard of is Budweiser. I guess it's kind of like Australia and Foster's isn't it?)

The worst beers would have to come from Thailand. Any beer that has paint stripper in it has to be placed in this category. Wicked hangovers from Chang beer.

Q3: You guys travel with your child.  What is the one thing that Kalyra has learned while travelling?

I think she has learned to have awe in the world around her and get excited by the simplest of things. She often stops to observe the world around her with gleeful cries of how beautiful it is. She is so open to learning and receiving.

Q4: Craig, which country you've visited has the best looking women? Caz, which country has the best looking men?

I really do think Australia has incredible looking men. And I have not been to this country, but there were plenty of Swedish men in Greece and I could not take my eyes off them!

Craig: There’s beautiful women in every country, but if I have to choose either the US or Ireland. (ED: Is it coincidence that this coincides with your favourite beers?)

Q5: What is the craziest thing you've ever done for a great picture?

Gone into a pen with a cheetah, after the keeper told us that she would charge us and we need to stay perfectly still. She did charge, and we were slightly terrified, but he stepped in the way, she backed down and we got some amazing photos.

Q6: Other than an electronics item, what is one item that you wouldn't travel without?

My open mind. (ED: I wish I would have thought of that! Good answer.)

Q7: Australians may travel more than any people in the world, what makes Aussies so travel happy?

I think because we are so isolated from the rest of the world. We interact a lot with the world growing up through sport, books, movies, studies at school, yet not many of us get a chance to visit other countries from a young age. Everything is so far away and so expensive.

I guess we have a natural genetic desire to explore and travel, based upon our culture’s history. Being part of the Commonwealth, we have a lot of opportunities to live and work in other countries. Aussies see this as the door to exploring this world they have heard so much about. Because we are so far away and it is so expensive, we tend to travel for long periods of time. Aussies love to have fun and travel is full of it. So once we start, we are hooked and just keep going!

Q8: If you could travel with one celebrity who would it be?  Oh, and you can't choose me!

‘Craig, can I choose Brad Pitt? Please?’

Okay then… I think either Jack Johnson or Ben Harper. They are both unpretentious, love living a simple life and travelling. They would go relatively unnoticed so we wouldn’t get hounded by groupies, we’d hang out in amazing beach locations around the world and sit around the campfire at night with cold beers while they put on a personal concert for us. Now that would make a great travel story.

Q9: What is the best food you discovered during travel?  What was the worst?

Definitely Thai food and I can’t name one dish because my mouth waters with the names of hundreds of them.

The worst, hands down, has been Turkish food, and this was when we ate meat. I’d hate to think what we’d do now we are vegetarians.

Q10: Last question. If someone told you today that they were paying for you to go on a two week holiday anywhere in the world where would you go?

Kalyra would really want us to say Disneyland here, but if someone else was paying I would make it somewhere I have yet been because of the high costs involved with going there. I think I would go to a health retreat in Hawaii.

Please ask Caz & Craig any questions you have in the comments section below.

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